$STMP #ShortPuts #Speculation – Sold STMP Nov 3 2017 170 Puts @ 1.08 with the stock at 177.77.
These expire in just a few hours
edit: added @ 1.20 and 1.40
Category Archives: Uncategorized
STMP earnings
#Earnings – Original trade was NOV 3 2017 190.0/250.0 Strangle @ 5.50
Bought to Close STMP NOV 3 2017 250.0 Call @ .05
Still deciding on the put…she’s getting spanked for now.
$CF #ShortPuts – Bought to…
$CF #ShortPuts – Bought to close 1 CF Jan 19 2018 20.0 Put @ 0.01. It won’t trade any lower and it doesn’t expire until next year.
Originally sold in April @ 1.19
MELI earnings
#Earnings – Original trade was NOV 17 2017 200.0/280.0 Strangle @ 3.70
On the massive spike up this morning:
Bought to Close MELI NOV 17 2017 200.0 Put @ .10
Pulling back now so watching the 280 call side….
AAPL
#SyntheticStock #LongCallDiagonals – AAPL only has 2.5 wide strikes right now so kinda limited on roll up. Best I can do is a small debit on front month roll.
Rolled AAPL NOV 3 2017 160.0 Calls to DEC 22 2017 162.5 Calls @ .95 debit
Synthetic stock working great and this debit reduces front month premium received to 2.65
Rough earnings
#Earnings AAPL and MELI looking fine for strangles/condors… LITE and STMP not looking good for longs. Considering whether to take loss, take assignment, or roll. TSLA and CC butterflys are out of reach, too, but smaller losses so I’ll let them go.
SHOP closed
#Earnings BTC $SHOP Nov 3rd 100 puts for .45. Strangles sold for 3.30 on Monday. Total exit price: .85
AAPL
#Earnings -Not waiting on a pullback. Taking minimal loss now instead of max later.
Bought to Close Nov 3rd 162.5/167.5/172.5 iron fly @ 4.30 (sold for 4.05)
Jobs Report for October
U.S. gained 261,000 non-farm payroll jobs in October, vs. +310K expected; biggest monthly gain this year; Sept revised from -33K to +18K.
Unemployment rate DOWN 0.1 to 4.1%.
U6 dropped to 7.9%, its lowest in over a decade.
Avg hourly earnings down -0.04%.
Labor Force Participation up to 62.7%, down from Sept.
Crypto stuff
What to do with some of this quarter’s earnings profits? I’ve always been willing to gamble a little…(I’m still holding a half million Iraqi Dinar from Gulf War 2)…worth about a hundred bucks. LOL Already holding a little Ethereum (no Bitcoin…grrr)
Bought to Open Litecoin @ 55.15
https://www.coinbase.com/
From a newsletter I get from a volatility guy that also dabbles in crypto:
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Litecoin
Just shoveled some money into Litecoin at $50 (it is down from $80 earlier in the year). I put in double my original investment from 2013. I now have in Litecoin 10x the number of bitcoins I used to have. (I used to have 3x but now is up to 10x). Litecoin used to be $4 last year and was around $20-25 in 2013 when I first purchased. This investment here is a fraction of the money I made in bitcoin. I can see Litecoin hit $500-$1000 on the back of problems in Bitcoin quickly. It is already widely accepted by the same merchants, it is on Coinbase. It is the same exact technology, with a well-known founder and more democratic hashing algo. A payment interface can be ported from bitcoin to litecoin quickly. If at some point there are problems with bitcoin, the processing will switch over to litecoin. You can think of Litecoin as a better backup to bitcoin. In fact many think, litecoin is the better technology because mining is always bound to be more distributed than bitcoin. The biggest risk to bitcoin is a 50%+1 attack. 99% bitcoin in the world is held by a 1000 Chinese. Miners located in Chinese jurisdictions continue to have more than 50% of the mining capacity. The risk of 50%+1 attack in bitcoin becomes greater every day the more Xi Jinping consolidates power. If you end up with futures and options exchanges based on bitcoin, the Chinese will have a huge lever to pull in their relations with the US because they can trigger a financial crisis by pulling the rug under bitcoin. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if that is the long term game Jinping is playing.
SatoshiLite tweeted today: If Segwit2x miners manages to kill original chain with a 51% attack, Bitcoin will eventually lose the crypto throne. My bet is on Litecoin.
SatoshiLite is the biggest name in crypto after Satoshi. He is the creator of Litecoin and Director of Engineering of Coinbase. Real name is Charles Lee. In the pantheon of crypto greats, first you had Charlie Lee and then you had Vitalik Buterin. Litecoin is $50, it is following the same path of adoption that bitcoin has, it is barely $2 billion in market cap. I think the future of this crypto currency as an eventual backup to bitcoin operations is very bright. God forbid we have an actual problem with the bitcoin network, litecoin will spike like you have never seen anything else spike.
If litecoin goes down more, I will be shoveling more money into it.
If you have a crypto portfolio, my suggestion here would be to take 50% of your bitcoin which is at a pretty steep price here $7,000 and re-allocate the entire amount to Litecoin. Then as bitcoin goes higher and higher, sell and buy litecoin. If Bitcoin goes to 25K, you will triple your money. If Litecoin, goes to a meager $500 per coin, you will make 10x your money. This should be viewed as a long term investment with a horizon of 5 years. Within 5 years, I would not be surprised to see Litcoin see the same level of network and industry adoption as Bitcoin has today and as such it’s price can easily be 10x from current levels. The litecoin mining rules and limitation of supply are just as stringent as bitcoin’s. After Bitcoin futures and options succeed, you will have Ethereum futures and options and after that Litecoin. Bitcoin is the trailblazer, but the next big pot of money in crypto is in litecoin in my humble opinion. At some point the bitcoin players will look to diversity and litecoin will be option #2 after ethereum (and for many #1 due to the more constrained supply)
2020 LEAPS…when?
Looks like we get the rest of them in a couple weeks…
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https://www.optionseducation.org/tools/faq/leaps_cycles.html
When are the exchanges going to list 2020 LEAPS®?
2020 LEAPS will be rolled out over a three month period.
Cycle 1: Monday, September 11th, 2017: January 2020 LEAPS® listed
Cycle 2: Monday, October 16th, 2017: January 2020 LEAPS® listed
Cycle 3: Monday, November 13th, 2017: January 2020 LEAPS® listed
Thanks Bistro!
Received a random call from my account rep at TD Ameritrade/TOS this afternoon as my previous rep left and she wanted to introduce herself. After talking for a few minutes realized she mainly wanted to know where all my trade ideas were coming from (Options Bistro) and to ask how I had 47.7% returns on the margin account in 6 months. Also did 35.6% on the IRAs in 6 months and a lot of that is from the ideas I get from the rest of you.
Thanks for the trade ideas and helping me tweak trade tactics to get more out of them.
Good to be here and hope I give some of you some ideas!
Let’s keep the ideas rolling but I still wish for some volatility without anyone getting burned.
Cheers
$UVXY
STC Nov 3 $17 calls @ $0.14
These were part of a $15/$17 call spread. Took them off today while there was still value in them.
Maybe Stamps are going out of style…
$STMP down, at least at first.
MELI and AAPL up.
CC down.
AAPL beats
EPS $2.07 beats by $0.20.
Revenue $52.6B beats by $1.81B.
Stock is popping.
TradersExpo livestream
From Vegas tonight. Sosnoff and a lot of the tastytrade team will be there. Free!
https://www.moneyshow.com/events/conferences/tradersexpo/tradersexpo-las-vegas/live-stream/login/?scode=
Earnings
Bring ’em on!
AAPL earnings
#Earnings – enough risk in other places so going limited here.
Sold Nov 3rd 162.5/167.5/172.5 iron fly @ 4.05
Five wide with 6.80 expected move. Skewing slightly bearish.
AAPL add on
#Earnings Sold a 160 put for .90, since the 157.5’s became too cheap. So I’m short 177.5 calls and 157.5 and 160 puts.
$STMP #ShortPuts #Earnings – Sold…
$STMP #ShortPuts #Earnings – Sold STMP Nov 3 2017 170.0 Puts @ 0.55 with the stock at 219.10
SBUX
#Earnings today. Also looks like a prime entry for #SyntheticStock . No position here…
GOOGL
BTC the short put side of a 890/850 BPS at .05, the spread was put on at 2.90 and I will let the 850 put just expire. It was a November 10 strike.
HRB
That’s gonna be a #FallingKnife you may not want to get under. I can’t wait to file taxes on a post card!
EWZ
#LongCallDiagonals #SyntheticStock -Been waiting for some sort of a pullback to get in this long term Whiz style (again). This is a half position that I’d like to add to when the 2020’s come out.
Bought to Open EWZ JAN 18 2019 40.0 Calls @ 5.02
Sold to Open EWZ JAN 18 2019 40.0 Puts @ 5.92
Taking the 90 cent credit from synthetic position applying it to the disaster put…
Bought to Open EWZ JAN 18 2019 35.0 Puts @ 3.87
This gives a net debit of only 2.97 for the Jan 2019 position. Add the 5 point max downside and get a max loss possibility of 7.97. Based on that, and the 63 weeks remaining in the trade I only need to average 12.5 cents per week in sales to cover the absolute worst case scenario.
So:
Sold EWZ NOV 10 2017 40.0 Calls @ .46
$UVXY #ShortCalls – A couple…
$UVXY #ShortCalls – A couple of small speculative positions with the stock just over 16.
Sold UVXY NOV 10 2017 20.5 Calls @ 0.41
Sold UVXY NOV 10 2017 21.0 Calls @ 0.42
$LB #ShortPuts – Bought to…
$LB #ShortPuts – Bought to close 1 LB Nov 17 2017 35.0 Put @ 0.05. It won’t trade any lower.
Originally sold at 1.35.
Other rungs of the #OptionLadder on this stock are the LB Jan 19 2018 32.5 Put @ 1.35 and the LB Feb 16 2018 30.0 Put @ 1.25. Both are doing fine.
Some #FallingKnife trades Sold: $ABC…
Some #FallingKnife trades
Sold:
$ABC May 18 55 puts @ 1.10
$CAH Mar 16 52.50 put @ 1.30
$CAH Jun 15 50 put @ 1.50
$NWL Jun 15 25 puts @ 1.45
$UAA #ShortPuts #Speculation – Sold…
$UAA #ShortPuts #Speculation – Sold UAA Nov 24 2017 12.0 Puts @ 0.63 with the stock at 11.75.
Slightly ITM. Hoping the stock finds a bottom in the next few weeks.
TQQQ Fuzzball trade
BTO 2019 80 call @55.35
STO 2019 80 put @8.17
STO November 3 134 call @.18
Total debit of $47.00 and will write weekly calls against the 2019 calls.
STMP earnings
#Earnings Sold $STMP Nov 3rd 200/180 put spreads for 4.15. Biggest UP move: 38.1%, Biggest DOWN move: -6.2%, Average move: 16.3%. This trade is -8.3% OTM.
$TSLA #ShortCalls – Bought to…
$TSLA #ShortCalls – Bought to close 1 TSLA Jan 19 2018 550.0 Call @ 0.01. It won’t trade any lower and it doesn’t expire until next year.
Originally sold on 6/6/17 at 4.10, so a pretty nice gain on this one.
Along the way I also sold short term puts on this stock to boost the overall return.
$OXY #ShortPuts – Bought to…
$OXY #ShortPuts – Bought to close OXY Nov 17 2017 52.5 Put @ 0.01.
Originally sold at 1.42.
It seems like all the #Oil related #FallingKnife trades are now working out.
STMP earnings
#Earnings – Not much liquidity but taking a shot outside the expected move…this thing could go anywhere.
Sold STMP NOV 3 2017 190.0/250.0 Strangle @ 5.50
Stock at 218 with expected move of +/- 25.75
MELI earnings
#Earnings #IronCondor Thanks @fuzzballl for heads up on this one. Leaning a bit bullish (based on historical performance) and going with a condor for protection and less margin:
Sold $MELI Nov 17th 200/210/280/290 condors for 2.35
EWZ
Getting closer to a Whiz ( #SyntheticStock ) entry. Thinking about half now and half later. Wish the 2020’s would get here.
Closing up SHOP
#Earnings Started closing the Nov 3rd 100/125 strangle, sold for 3.30 on Monday.
Closed all of the 125 calls for .05.
Closed one 100 put for 1.45. Hopefully can get out of rest for lower, but watching as this one has been as low as 94.51 since earnings. The weakness may be over, but watching.
MELI earnings
#Earnings – Could be another wild one and I’m due for one to struggle. Can’t pass this up though…great premium even well outside the expected move (+/- 22.10 today and 27.0 by expiry). BTW these are monthlies…
Sold MELI NOV 17 2017 200.0/280.0 Strangle @ 3.70
CYBR Covered Calls
Sold $CYBR Dec 15 45 calls @ 1.60.
Continuing to work basis down since taking assignment on this a little more than a year ago. With this sale, basis would be 44.80 if called away at 45.
CC earnings
#Earnings #UnbalancedButterfly Never traded this before but strong historical earnings results and a bullish trade. Sold $CC Nov 3rd 55.5/57.5/59.5 (1/3/2) unbalanced put butterfly for .60.
Max profit at 57.5: 2.60
Minimum profit above 57.5: .60
Max loss under 55.5: 1.40
SPX trades
#SPXcampaign Sold to Open $SPX Nov 13th 2560/25635 put spreads for 4.00, as a #ReverseRoll from calls stopped yesterday.
Also yesterday, forgot to post:
Closed Nov 8th 2530/2505 put spreads for .60. Sold for 3.70
AAPL Earnings
#earnings Mostly followed @jeffcp66 strikes, sold Nov. 17 #ironcondor 152.50/157.50/180/185 for 1.22
Next week trades
Will be assigned 300 shares of GILD tomorrow at 79. Cost 77.96. Will cover next week or synthetic short if it keeps dropping. 74.35 is a long term elliott wave level support so if it breaks that synthetic with a few extra puts.
Rolled WDC 85 CC to 2 weeks out for 0.82, 0.8, 0.72, 0.77 credits
Rolled WDC 86 CC to 2 weeks for 1.08 credit
Closed WDC 84.5 put for 0.05, sold 1.05
New ticker based on @jsd501 idea yesterday and I have been watching it for a few months now. Good premiums but whippy. STO TQQQ 11/17 115 put for 1.75. Had no problem going at the mid point so suspect liquidity is good.
Theta on /CL 5 contracts is $61 per day so up $50 last night. I know some of you don’t like not have weekly options but it is an efficient market.
Have a bunch of 85 SVXY puts expiring tomorrow.
We need some volatility. Took me twice as long as usual to find any good trades or premium this morning.
That’s all for the week, going biking and hope everyone has a good expiration tomorrow!
Chris
$UVXY
STO Nov 10 $21.5 calls @ $0.34
rolled GLD
#PerpetualRollingStrangles – Tastytrade research suggests rolling at 15-20 days to go to maintain max daily theta which is the goal of these. If they’re out of the money I’ll hold ’em but in the money I’ll roll ’em.
Rolled GLD NOV 17 2017 125.0/118.0 Inverted Strangles to DEC 15 2017 125.0/118.0 @ .85 credit
TLT roll
#PerpetualRollingStrangles – Picking up another nice monthly “dividend”…
Rolled TLT NOV 17 2017 130.0 Puts to TLT DEC 15 2017 130.0 Puts @ .30 credit…
Current positions now all in December bringing in $44 per day of theta. I felt this was a pretty important thing to remember about these “forever” trades. Time decay is time decay…whether in the money or not, it’s the same. As long as the deltas are reasonable just keep on collecting. Easily bringing in 150% on margin annually.
December:
121.0 Calls and Puts
123.0 Calls
127.0 Puts
129.0 Calls
130.0 Puts
Slightly long deltas…
AAPL earnings
#Earnings Sold $AAPL Nov 3rd 157.5/177.5 strangles for 1.23. Small position to start, may add more on each side with intraday swings.
Biggest UP move: 6.5%, Biggest DOWN move: -6.6%, Average move: 4.2%. With stock at 166.50 my short strikes are +6.6% and -5.4% OTM.
TSLA again
#ShortCalls -Cleaning up a straggler on this drop…
Bought to Close TSLA JAN 19 2018 500.0 Call @ .15 (sold for 2.15)
TSLA earnings
#Earnings – Got lucky…didn’t think 300 would hold so I’m outta here!
Bought to Close TSLA NOV 3 2017 290.0/350.0 Strangle @ .61 (sold for 4.65)
Worst case scenario? CHAPTER 11…what are the odds?
Probability Of Bankruptcy Analysis
For stocks, Probability Of Bankruptcy is normalized value of Z-Score. For funds and ETFs it is derived from a multi-factor model developed by Macroaxis. The score is used to predict probability of a firm or a fund experiencing financial distress within next 24 months. Unlike Z-Score, Probability Of Bankruptcy is the value between 0 and 100 indicating the actual probability the firm will be distressed in the next 2 fiscal years.
https://www.macroaxis.com/invest/ratio/UAA–Probability-Of-Bankruptcy
Bottom feeders in my accounts:
AAOI: 3%
TEVA: 48%
UAA: 13%
Expired
#optionsexpiration
$SPX 2540/2515 BECS 300 loss per contract
$TSLA – initial move has…
$TSLA – initial move has it down to 305ish.
TEVA
Not really #Earnings but sort of. Uncovering my stock just in case something crazy happens.
Bought to Close TEVA NOV 3 2017 15.5 Calls @ .19 (sold for .32)
#earnings FB #butterfly #longputspread Nov….
#earnings FB
#butterfly #longputspread
Nov. 17 sold 177.50/182.50/182.50/185 puts for .86 credit, possible 346 above 179, bought 180/172.50 for 1.59 to cover the downside.
Last of the DRIPs
Closed the last of my positions in this ticker at .05. Was a nice run starting in July, and now completely out of it. Not sure if we’ll get another shot at this one anytime soon.
Bought to close $DRIP Dec 15 35 calls @ .05. Sold for 3.58, 4.00 and 5.00 from 6/7-6/21.
$TSLA #ShortPuts #Earnings – Sold…
$TSLA #ShortPuts #Earnings – Sold TSLA Nov 3 2017 270.0 Puts @ 0.72 with the stock at 321.90.
These Expire Friday
#SPXCampaign Sold to open a…
#SPXCampaign Sold to open a Bull Put spread, Nov 22nd 2500/2480 for 1.00 when SPX was at 2580.33. Immediate fill at the mark. Hate that because it makes me feel like I missed something. Should have added a nickel. I’ll be out before holiday travels.
FB earnings
#Earnings #CoveredCalls Sold $FB Nov 3rd 192.5 covered calls for 1.15 and 1.30
$SVXY
STO $SVXY Nov 10 $80 puts @ $0.33
$FB Earnings
Going outside the expected move and selling puts (in the Nov monthly series) at a level where I wouldn’t mind owning the stock. Basis would be 168.35.
Sold $FB Nov 17 170 puts @ 1.65.
SPX Campaign Quickie / SPX Not So Quickie / Short Puts
#spxcampaign
Quickie
$SPX STO 11/13 2590/2565 BECS @ 16.70
$SPX BTC 11/13 2590/2565 BECS @ 14.00 One day trade. Thank you @jeffcp66
Not as Quickie
$SPX STO 11/13 2565/2590 BUPS @ 8.15
#shortputs
$STX STO 12/15 36 put @ 1.05
$EXPE STO 11/17 120 put @ 1.20
$CREE STO 12/15 35 put @ 1.50
$MZOR STO 11/17 55 put @ 1.30
$EXAS STO 11/10 51.5 put @ 1.20
TSLA
#Earnings – This could get exciting…selling 1.5x the expected move.
Sold TSLA NOV 3 2017 290.0/350.0 Strangle @ 4.65
FB
#Earnings – Going super bullish and/or getting a little stock at close to wherever it drops to if she tanks. I’m happy either way…
Sold FB NOV 3 2017 190.0/185.0 Bull Put Spread @ 3.50
#earningstrade TSLA Nov 17 #ironcondor…
#earningstrade TSLA
Nov 17 #ironcondor 260/270/380/390 for 1.20 TSLA is at 322
TLT
#PerpetualRollingStrangles – Surprise fill prior to the Fed announcement. Loading up more theta…
Rolled TLT NOV 17 2017 127.0 Puts to DEC 15 2017 127.0 Puts @ .66 credit
SPX trades
#SPXcampaign $SPX
Closed Nov 8th 2525/2550 call spreads for 23.75. Sold last Wednesday for 19.40.
#ITMroll Sold Nov 15th 2540/2565 call spreads for 20.70.
Closed Nov 8th 2540/2565 call spreads for 22.65. Sold for 19.35 on Oct 24th.
#InverseCondor Rolled to Nov 15th 2575/2600 calls and 2595/2570 put spreads for 23.25.
Stopped Nov 10th 2600/2625 call spreads for 3.80 (4.00 stop was hit)
Working on a #ReverseRoll
Oil trade, looks like the…
Oil trade, looks like the opec changes are working and oil is staying in a tighter range.
Futures margin currently $2700 per contract so would not sell anymore options than you can cover.
I am currently only selling 5 contracts as I need margin to cover GILD shares at end of week.
/CL strangle Feb 18 46/63 for 0.48 credit which is $2400 credit on 5 contracts. Initial margin 6000 but I have my cushion to cover the contracts if we have an extended move.
Goal is to take off in 4 weeks for 50% profit. Those levels are currently delta 8 and they decay to delta 4 in 4-5 weeks.
Just filled at 0.48
$NFX #ShortPuts – Bought to…
$NFX #ShortPuts – Bought to close 1 NFX Dec 15 2017 23.0 Put @ 0.05. It won’t trade any lower and has almost 2 months to run until expiration.
Originally sold at 1.20 on 08/03/17 as a #FallingKnife trade.
TSLA earnings
#Earnings Sold $TSLA Nov 3rd 320/325/330 unbalanced (2/3/1) put butterfly for 2.15.
Bought two 320 puts, sold 3 325 puts, bought one 330 put. Net credit 2.15.
Max profit with 325 pin, 7.15. Minimum profit if above 325, 2.15 . Max loss of 2.85 to downside below 320.
$UAA #ShortPuts #Speculation – Sold…
$UAA #ShortPuts #Speculation – Sold UAA Nov 24 2017 12.0 Puts @ 0.53 with the stock at 12.06.
$BBBY #CoveredCalls – Sold BBBY…
$BBBY #CoveredCalls – Sold BBBY May 18 2018 25.0 Calls @ 0.77
#LongCallDiagonals help!
If anyone sees or notices any issues with these #LongCallDiagonals please throw it out there. Maybe we can fine tune for even more safety or profits. I got the idea from Whiz but applying it to my own underlyings. He’s been trading them for years but maybe we can improve on it.
Kinda like my cockpit briefing with the other guy (or gal 🙂 ) …if you see me doing something stupid ask me what the heck I’m doing…LOL I’ve got pretty thick skin!
GE
#LongCallDiagonals -Not in this yet…waiting for 2020’s but here’s what I’m looking at based on Jan 2019 numbers
1. Sell 23 puts and buy 23 calls (synthetic long stock)
2. Buy 20 puts for protection for disasters
All of that for a .75 credit so max loss of 2.25 so only need to sell 3.5 cents per week to cover max loss. Anything above that goes straight to profits.
DIS
#LongCallDiagonals – 115 weeks to go. 🙂
Bought to Close DIS NOV 3 2017 99.5 Calls @ .01 (sold for .36)
Sold DIS NOV 10 2017 99.0 Calls @ 1.36
SPX hedge
#RocketManHedge – Only need to collect 4.15 per week to carry this as a free hedge…this week’s looks safe so selling next week. So far it’s looking like carrying a short SPX position out to Jan expiry might actually turn a profit with market up or down (down would be better 🙂 )
Sold SPX NOV 10 2017 2560.0 Put @ 5.20
Selling against synthetic short in January…
MA earnings closed
#Earnings BTC $MA Nov 3rd 150/148 put spreads for .25. Sold for 1.00 on Monday.
Options Bistro 